1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to the field of media management. More particularly, this invention relates to a system and method for the automatic printing of labels for storage media; and, in particular, optical disk cartridges.
2. General Background
For purposes of simplicity, the following discussion will be limited to the labeling of optical disk cartridges. It will be understood, however, that the present invention is not so limited, and may be expanded to include non-optical storage media such as magnetic cassette cartridges.
Recently, as the requirements for access to larger amounts of data and other information increases, there is a concomitant demand for more flexible, expandable mass storage. Magneto-optical and other erasable optical disks have become increasingly popular for storing data, given that substantial amount of information may be stored in digital format in these high density disks, information may be readily written to and erased or read from these disks, and such disks are generally impervious to stray magnetic fields at room temperatures. In light of the aforementioned advantages, erasable optical disks have become particularly popular with users who require substantial libraries of cataloged information. For example, sales and marketing departments may use such disks in order to store catalogs of financial data, graphics, and other information.
In addition, optical disk cartridge storage and retrieval devices have been proposed which allow for the storage and retrieval of any of a preselected number of erasable optical disk cartridges. One such optical disk cartridge storage and retrieval device is the OSL-2000, which is commercially available from Sony Electronics Inc., 1 Sony Drive, Park Ridge, N.J. 07656, and which may be seen with reference to FIGS. 1a and 1b. Optical disk cartridge storage and retrieval devices may be dedicated to a computer or may be connected to several workstations via a computer network such as a local area network (LAN) or wide are network (WAN). The following description relates to a network-enabled optical disk cartridge storage and retrieval device; however, it will be understood that the following description is substantially applicable to that of an optical disk cartridge storage and retrieval device dedicated to a single computer.
Referring to FIGS. 1a and 1b, it will be seen that the network-enabled optical storage and retrieval device 40 preferably includes two components: a control system or controller 42 and the optical storage and retrieval device 43 itself. The controller 42 preferably includes a CPU, memory (preferably EPROM and RAM), a disk controller (e.g., an SCSI disk controller), and a network interface (not shown). In addition, the controller 42 contains a hard disk drive (not shown) for holding software, including executable programs and an operating system, and for serving as a cache for reading and writing accesses to increase information transfer to and from the optical disks encased by the optical disk cartridges. The hard disk drive also can maintain directory pointers to all optical disk cartridges, including those stored off-line. The network-enabled optical disk cartridge storage and retrieval device 40 is connected at 49 to a LAN or WAN and acts as a server to provide storage resources to remote workstations connected to the network, and to allow these workstations to access information stored on the erasable optical disks contained in the optical storage and retrieval device 43.
The optical storage and retrieval device 43 stores up to, for example, twenty optical disk cartridges (not shown) in one or more racks in an array of horizontally-oriented storage slots 46. These storage slots are arranged in one or more vertical columns so that the optical disk cartridges sit horizontally one on top of another in the individual slots 46. A cartridge retrieval arm or mechanism 45 which is movable to a position adjacent one of such slots 46, is then activated to retrieve a selected disk 48 for reading/writing/erasing upon command from, and under the control of, either a central microprocessor located within the device or under the control of an external controller connected thereto. Read/write operations occur via a laser light beam imparted on the optical disk through an aperture in the optical disk cartridge. Cartridges stored in the device and retrievable by the cartridge retrieval arm or mechanism 45, are deemed "near-line", since they may be readily placed "on-line" via the cartridge retrieval arm or mechanism 45. The optical disk cartridges may be exchanged by ejection of a particular cartridge and insertion of another cartridge through a "mail" slot 44 in the device. These optical disk cartridge storage and retrieval devices are commonly referred to as "jukeboxes", given their similarity to the mechanical devices used for playing audio recordings popularized in the 1930's.
In operation, a workstation (not shown) connected to the network will send a request to access information from one of the optical disk cartridges which may be stored either near-line in the network-enabled optical storage and retrieval device 40, or off-line in storage. The request to access data is generally made by a "volume" or "media" ID. This media ID constitutes a name assigned to any number of optical disk cartridges associated by the type of information stored on the optical disks encased by the cartridges. For example, if one were using the network-enabled optical storage and retrieval device in the sales and marketing area, one media ID might be associated with three disk cartridges including competitors' sales information, while a separate media ID might be associated with five disk cartridges including invoices, expense reports, and general accounting information. Because the network-enabled optical storage and retrieval device 40 maintains a list of the status of disk cartridges including those which are off-line, and a media ID can be associated with a limitless number of these optical disk cartridges, new disk cartridges can be readily added to an already existing group of optical disk cartridges associated with a particular media ID. The effect is to give the workstation user unlimited storage capacity for the particular data or other information which he is managing.
After receiving the request to access the desired information, the CPU of the controller 42 preferably communicates with the network-enabled optical storage and retrieval device cartridge retrieval arm 45 through an SCSI interface, and the server software sends instructions to the cartridge retrieval arm 45 to move the optical disk cartridges between the storage slots 46 and the optical disk drive 47 for read and write operations. An application in the optical storage and retrieval device server maintains a list of the status of the disk cartridges located in the optical storage and retrieval device, and, as indicated above, can also maintain directory pointers to off-line optical disk cartridges. Once the selected optical disk cartridge(s) 48 are moved to the optical disk drive 47, a workstation can access any information stored therein.
Systems and methods have been proposed for the management of off-line magnetic, optical, and magneto-optical disk cartridges used in conjunction with optical disk cartridge storage and retrieval devices, or "jukeboxes". One such proposal may be seen in the U.S. patent application entitled "System and Method for the Storage and Retrieval of Off-Line Preformatted Optical Media", Ser. No. 08/444,323, which is assigned to the assignee of the present invention, and incorporated by reference herein. As seen in that application, a unique sequentially-numbered coded label selected from a series of sequentially-numbered coded labels is affixed to each of a plurality of optical disk cartridges which are stored either near-line in an optical disk storage and retrieval device or off-line in a storage area or warehouse. Each of the sequentially-numbered coded labels generally includes two parts: a first part including an alphanumeric code unique to the particular optical disk cartridge, and a second part including an optical code adjacent to the alphanumeric code. Each time a new cassette is ordered or consumed, the alphanumeric code is incremented and a label including this incremented code is affixed to the new disk cartridge. Each of the optical disks encased by the optical disk cartridges is then preformatted so that the unique alphanumeric code of the optical disk cartridge encasing the optical disk becomes the unique preformatted disk ID of the optical disk. A list of these preformatted disk ID's is then stored in data storage in the optical disk cartridge storage and retrieval device. A request to access a selected optical disk cartridge is made by a computer connected to the optical disk cartridges storage and retrieval device by a media ID associated with at least the selected optical disk cartridge, wherein the media ID also corresponds to at least one of the unique preformatted disk ID's. The data storage in the optical disk cartridge storage and retrieval device is then addressed according to this media ID and a controller determines whether the selected optical disk cartridge is located in the optical disk cartridge storage and retrieval device. If it is determined that the selected optical disk cartridge is not located in the optical disk cartridge storage and retrieval device, the computer displays a prompt to load the selected optical disk cartridge according to the unique preformatted disk ID. As the optical disk cartridges are generally sequentially organized off-line according to their respective alphanumeric code, and as the user is prompted to load a desired optical disk cartridge according to its preformatted disk ID which corresponds to this alphanumeric code, it will be appreciated that this system and method allows a user of an optical storage and retrieval device to readily locate a desired disk cartridge from a storage area and replace said disk upon completion of use of same.
While, as stated above, the optical disk cartridges are generally stored sequentially according to their alphanumeric codes, it may also be desirable to identify and/or organize the optical disk cartridges according to their media ID so that the user could readily identify what information is stored in same. (Again, the media ID constitutes a name assigned to any number of optical disk cartridges associated by the type of information stored on the optical disks encased by the cartridges). Consequently, it would be desirable to provide a label which indicates to the user the media ID with which the particular optical disk cartridge is associated in order that he can ascertain the type of information contained in said optical disk cartridge.
Although the user of the optical disk cartridge could write or type the media ID on a label, this is not always convenient, as the user would have to locate blank labels, and a writing tool or typewriter, all or some of which might not be readily available. Additionally, and particularly in the case handwritten labels, the writing is sometimes unclear and hard to read or understand.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a system and method of labeling storage media, in particular, optical disk cartridges, with their associated media IDs which do not require a user to manually write or type said media ID on the label.
Accordingly, it is one object of the present invention to provide a system and method of labeling storage media.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and method of labeling optical disk cartridges so that a user could readily identify said cartridges' associated media IDs.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a system and method of automatically printing a label to be externally affixed to an optical disk cartridge, the label including the disk cartridge's media ID.